The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1887-01-29
A Happy Occasion.
London World.

A Happy Occasion.
London World.
'D0 not e0me too Aate.' That was the
wording of the telegram which Captain
Richard Irton held in his hand as he
sat, in a temperature of 1902 in the
shade, on the veranda of his Indian
bungalow.
'Do not come too late?' he muttered
to himself. by Jove, as if it were prob
able that he would dawdle now! 1t was
just like Mrs. Lennox to send such a
chatting wire as this. He might have
been long time making up his mind,
but it was made up now, and he meant
to 60 home and marry her. 1t was her
last letter that had settled the matter
the letter in which she limited that Lord
Shorthorn was awfully mashed No,
he wasn't going to stand by and see
Dorothy Lennox married to cad like
Shorthorn. He had been whole year,
he reminded himself, in this internal
station, with its furnace heat, its inane
gossip, and its eternal tennis and polo.
How he loathed the sight of his Major S
wife, with her white eyelashes, her ma
licious giggle, and her flirting manners
And then he thought of Mrs. Lennox.
He remembered the first night he had
met her-in the ball room of a great
house in London-and how he had seen
her surrounded by half dozen other
fellows, and how he 'had made the run
ning,' and cut out all those outsiders.
And he recollected the call he had paid
the next day at her tiny house in Park
street, when she had been so sweet and
graceful, and had talked to him as
no woman had ever talked before. He
didn't 60 in for brains or any of that
rot, but, by Jove! Dorothy Lennox
made him feel like another fellow. He
thought of the cool, amber tinted room
where she always sat, with its dropping
palms, its masses of azaleas, its Rajon
etchings, and its blue and white Nankin.
1t was always cool and cosy in Mrs.
Lennox's house, and she had way OF
| taking fellows hand and looking him
seriously in the eyes which was quite ir-
resistible.
He remembered how it had become
almost a habit to drop in of an after
noon, to lounge on her soft divan, and
listen to her half chatting talk, and low
| delicious laugh. And when woman
is deuced good looking as well as clever,
what was a fellow to do? Perhaps, il
was wrong to make love in quite such
serious way as he did, but, hang it
she wasn't kitten, and she might have
known he wasn't of the marrying sort.
| All that was year ago, but he had
not forgot her bit-worse luck. And
her letters-how awfully nice they were
how like herself! Not spooney, like
those he wrote to her; but frank, hu.
morous, and thoroughly 6ou cama'ade'
Hang it all! 1t was much easier to keeI
heart-whole in London than in this sui
try hole. He had managed to evade
compromising himself definitely, even
when he had gone to bid Mrs. Lennoz
| good-by, although he had been perilous
ly near proposing to her that last even
ing; but he had got away, and nothing
had been said which would have tieC
him down to an engagement.
Dick, in his rowing life, had commit
ted every folly except that which he
considered the hugest folly of all-tht
folly of tying yourself to one woman fol
life. He remembered how he had con
graduated himself on all this when he
went on board the Jumna.' Was he.
the best looking fellow and keenest
sportsman in the 5oth Hussars, to knock
under like any spooney young sub, the
moment he met pretty woman? But
now things were changed. He hao
never bargained, somehow, for her mar
rying again; he had got to look upor
her more or less as his own. When she
had written that letter with all the al.
lusions to Shorthorn in it, his blood fair
ly boiled. He didn't regret bit the
letter he had written in reply, telling
her he was leaving India the very day
he could get leave, and asking her to bt
his wife. After all, why shouldn't he
marry? He was over thirty, and ht
| had had, as he remembered with smile
his fling The fellows in his regimen
used to chaff him and call him casual,
and said he never did to-day what hi
could put off till tomorrow. But tina
was all nonsense. He could make W
his mind like other men, even to matri
mony. And here was her answer to hi
letter: do not come too late Well
he had got his leave and would be will
her in three weeks.
Mrs. Lennox was the sort of woman
about whom peoples tongues are alway
wagging. Hardly was her late husband
borne beneath nodding plumes to Ken
sal Green than she was married, in per
spective, to at least dozen admirers
She was great success in society, 70
besides being a charming woman, sh
was fashionable poetess, writing word
for Tosti's songs, aud publishing vol
umes of verse, bound in white parch
ment, and printed on extra thick paper
Tall and slight, with smooth dark hal
and liquid eyes, she had a face full Q
character and determination. To loo
at Mrs. Lennox was to know that sh
was woman who rapidly made up he
mind, and who, once having done SC
was not likely to alter it. But two year
had passed away since her husband
day, and this ninteenth century Sapph